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Ezekiel 26
The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.
Against Tyre
1 And it came to pass in the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, that the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, 2 Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, "Aha! The gate of the peoples is broken; it has swung open to me. I shall be filled, now that she is laid waste," 3 therefore thus says Adonai Yahweh: See, I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. 4 They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers; and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. 5 She shall be a place for spreading nets in the midst of the sea, for I have spoken, declares Adonai Yahweh; and she shall become spoil for the nations. 6 And her daughters on the mainland shall be slain by the sword; and they will know that I am Yahweh.
7 For thus says Adonai Yahweh: See, I will bring against Tyre from the north Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen, and a great host of people. 8 Your daughters on the mainland he will slay with the sword; he will build a siege wall against you, heap up a ramp against you, and raise a shield against you. 9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls, and with his weapons he will break down your towers. 10 Because of the abundance of his horses, their dust will cover you; your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen, the wheels and the chariots, when he enters your gates as men enter a city that has been breached. 11 With the hoofs of his horses he will trample all your streets; he will slay your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground. 12 They will plunder your riches and make spoil of your merchandise; they will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses; your stones, your timber and your soil they will cast into the midst of the waters. 13 I will put an end to the noise of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more. 14 I will make you a bare rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets; you shall never be rebuilt, for I, Yahweh, have spoken, declares Adonai Yahweh.
The princes of the sea mourn
15 Thus says Adonai Yahweh to Tyre: Will not the coastlands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when slaughter is done in your midst? 16 Then all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones, lay aside their robes and strip off their embroidered garments; they will clothe themselves with trembling; they will sit on the ground, tremble every moment, and be appalled at you. 17 And they will take up a lament over you and say to you, "How you have perished, you who were inhabited from the seas, O renowned city, who was mighty on the sea, she and her inhabitants, who laid their terror on all who dwelt there! 18 Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your fall; the coastlands that are by the sea are dismayed at your passing."
19 For thus says Adonai Yahweh: When I make you a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep over you and the great waters cover you, 20 then I will bring you down with those who go down to the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you dwell in the depths of the earth, like the ancient ruins, with those who go down to the pit, so that you will not be inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living. 21 I will make you a terror, and you shall be no more; though you are sought, you will never be found again, declares Adonai Yahweh.
Notes
- 26:1 The eleventh year of Jehoiachin's exile is the year Jerusalem fell, 587 or 586 BC (2 Kings 25:2-8). The Hebrew gives the day but not the month, which may have dropped out of the text. Since Tyre is already gloating over Jerusalem's ruin (verse 2), the oracle probably comes soon after the city fell, or as the end was clearly at hand.
- 26:2 Tyre was the great Phoenician sea power, built mainly on a rocky island just off the coast, with daughter towns on the mainland. Jerusalem had been "the gate of the peoples," controlling the inland trade routes; with it broken, Tyre expects the traffic and the profit to flow to her. Her sin is not that she harmed Jerusalem, but that she saw its ruin as her opportunity.
- 26:4 Tyre in Hebrew is Tsor, "rock," and the judgment plays on the name: the proud island city will be scraped down to "a bare rock" (tsechiach sela), fit only for fishermen to spread their nets on (verse 5). The same phrase is used in 24:7 of Jerusalem's uncovered blood.
- 26:7 "King of kings" was a title of the great Mesopotamian emperors (compare Ezra 7:12; Daniel 2:37). This is the first time Ezekiel names Nebuchadnezzar. Josephus, writing in the first century and citing Phoenician records, says that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Tyre for thirteen years; Ezekiel himself later says that the king's army labored hard against Tyre without receiving wages from it (29:17-20).
- 26:12 The subject changes from "he" (Nebuchadnezzar, verses 7-11) to "they," the "many nations" that come against Tyre like waves (verse 3). In 332 BC Alexander the Great took the island city by building a causeway out to it, and ancient historians report that he used the stones and timber of the old mainland city to do it; many see this verse fulfilled there. Tyre was rebuilt in later times and appears in the New Testament (Matthew 15:21; Acts 21:3); interpreters understand "you shall never be rebuilt" (verse 14) as the end of the ancient city and its sea power, or of the site described, and they differ in the details.
- 26:20 "The pit" (bor) is a picture of the grave and Sheol, the realm of the dead; "those who go down to the pit" is a phrase from the Psalms (Psalm 28:1; 88:4). The city that the sea once made rich is swallowed by "the deep" and goes down to join the long-dead peoples of old; Ezekiel uses the same picture for Egypt (31:14-16; 32:18-32). In the last line the Hebrew has "and I will set glory in the land of the living"; the word for glory (tsevi) is used of the land of Israel in 20:6 ("the glory of all lands"), so the line may contrast Tyre's end with the honor Yahweh will give His own land. The ancient Greek translation and many modern versions read it as part of the threat: "nor stand (or have a place) in the land of the living."